Who Am I ?
by maninblack
Summary: My first. PG because of one little paragraph. One can't be too safe nowadays. Please, please brickbat and bouquet.


Disclaimer: Batman and related characters are the properties of DC COMICS. I write because I like, and have no claim on them. This work is my own.  
  
This story is dedicated to my little love, my life, my death, my definition.  
  
Who am I?  
By: ManInBlack  
  
There's a chill in the air tonight. The strange half-light of a yellow half-moon makes love to the glow of the city lights. This far above the streets, you can actually see moonlight, and the stars. They are so beautiful, those stars. What must it be like, to fly amongst them? What kind of a mind must one have, to have those stars in one's eyes? What kind of a person would seem perfectly natural, clad in a mantle of those stars?  
  
Diana.  
  
I crouch on my favorite Gargoyle, looking over my city. Sometimes, I can objectively look at myself. Sometimes. Right now, I seem to be a melodramatic old man. I mean, how corny can I get, striking a dramatic pose, batwing cape flowing around me, eyes aglow, sitting on top of a grotesque stone sculpture, when there is no one around to watch me? Like some kind of comic book hero. "To strike terror into the heart of every doer of evil". Heh.  
  
They call me many things. The Dark Knight. I like the sound of that. The Caped Crusader. Ugh. The Dark night Detective. Double Ugh. The man with the best toys. DAMN.  
  
I extract my fist from the side of the gargoyle. I HATE that term. I am not about toys. I use whatever tools are necessary to get the job done, but I am not Inspector Gadget. My tools do not define me. Batarangs? Bah. At least, they sound better that the Lasso Of Truth.  
  
Diana.  
  
Suddenly, I leap out into open air. The wind whistles around me as I let my training take over. Twist. Flip. Spread out. Grab ends of cape. I may not be able to fly, but I missed it by just that much. At what seems like the last possible moment, a jumpline flies. I don't need to look. I know exactly where it's headed. A dizzying arc. A sweeping swing. And the Batman alights, as graceful as darkness itself, on a ledge.  
  
There I go again. Playing to the gallery. But there is no gallery. Who watches me, as I perform these miracles of human agility? Who am I trying to impress?  
  
The Batman. I have thought of myself as that for too long now. Even in my mind, I always capitalize the The. Creating a legend was not so hard, huh ? Maintaining it is turning out to be harder than I thought it would be.  
  
As long as it was just me and the night, it was okay. Thieves would faint when I came out of the darkness and at them. Murderers would ever look in the shadows, knowing in their hearts I could be anywhere, watching. As the sun went down, the whispers in the nether regions (there I go again) would be loud. Beware the Bat.  
  
But then, I got company. The team keeps growing. I never thought I was the type. Me, my cousin, my dog and my best pal is not my style at all. Yet, I find myself at the head of the largest "family" of vigilantes which are not association. How can I be the Terror in the Night AND "father" of two "sons" and mentor/guide to two others? The most frightening figures in history have always been alone. Can you imagine Dracula and Nosferatu, the Blood Brothers? Or the Pack Of Werewolves? It's just not the same.  
  
As long as it was just me and the night, I could be imperfect. No one would see any errors of judgment that I made. No one would pay for my mistakes. No one could be my weakness. Now, it's different. So different.  
  
Not that I think any of my protégés are weaknesses or liabilities. They can take care of themselves. Heck, they take care of me sometimes. I know that they love me. I love them too. But, am I capable of being the father, the patriarch, they all see in me? Am I who they think they are?  
  
Am I who I think I am?  
  
Who am I?  
  
I leap off the ledge again. In less than a minute, I am on the ground again, in a dark alley where a sleek bullet of a car waits. "Open". The car knows the gravel in my voice. Good old Batmobile.  
  
No wonder they call me the man with the best toys.  
  
I switch every piece of sophisticated electronics off. Including, I think for the first time ever, the police scanners. It's only myself and the old internal combustion engine as I roar off down the road. Nightwing's in Bludhaven. Robin's at school. But Huntress is on patrol tonight, and I know Azrael is in town. Tonight, the city will have to do without me. No. Without the Batman.  
  
The countryside sweeps by. I try to use my training. Concentrate. Withdraw to the core of your being. Enfold yourself in a cloak of calm. Breathe. Be one with the rhythm of the universe. Be you.  
  
NOOOO.  
  
There is no core of my being. Calm is artificial. I cannot touch the rhythm. I do not know who I am.  
  
Who am I?  
  
With the thought comes another question. Why am I suddenly so concerned? In the past, I have let my mission define me. I have been content to fight the good fight, to never go down, to be what the criminals, the world, the League made me out to be.  
  
The League.  
  
Diana.  
  
The manor is there. I can feel it inside me. Wayne manor. Home to generations of Waynes. Bruce Wayne's home. My home.  
  
My home?  
  
Even Alfred is not in this night. For some reason, I can't stand The Batcave, and its Crays, and microscopes and monitors and who knows what else. I walk through various secret passages until I am, in full costume, in my room.  
  
In Bruce Wayne's room.  
  
The full length mirror reflects a tall shadow. A nightmare. A thought in the mind of a madman. I can't stand it.  
  
Bit by bit, I throw off all my clothes. The cowl. The cape. The Utility Belt (those Capital Letters again). The "underwear worn outside". Everything. Naked, I stand before the mirror again.  
  
I see a tall man. Big. A bigness of muscle and tendon and bone. Black hair. Black eyes. I have black eyes? Why didn't anyone ever tell me? Why didn't anyone notice?  
  
I look down. If only those brainless bimbos of Gotham's "society" knew how true the rumours they spread are. Not that it has been of much use to me.  
  
There. That half-smile. It's unique. No one but me has it. It's all mine. She said so herself.  
  
She.  
  
Diana.  
  
Diana calls Clark Kal. Arthur, Orin. Strange, because Superman thinks of himself as Clark Kent, not Kal-el. And Aquaman is Orin first, Arthur Curry is a pseudonym. She herself, of course, is Diana. Always and forever. She never seems sure of what to call me.  
  
Who am I?  
  
I look at the mirror again. There is a grimness in my face, my whole face, that just about no one on earth has ever seen. Even Clark, with his X-ray eyes, cannot fully see through my cowl. I lost my parents to criminals. I devoted my life to fight criminals and crime. I honed my mind and body to perfection. I became master of every fighting style there is.  
  
Almost involuntarily, my body flows from motion to motion. I dance the dance of death before the mirror. I see flashes of my myriad masters in my dance. I see Lady Shiva, the most recent master, a little more than the others. I even see flashes of Dick. I learn from everyone. Heck, I even see Diana.  
  
But no one, not one of them, could dance like I do now. I have taken the best they all could give me, and bettered it. I have studied their weaknesses, and made them my strengths. I have battled with creatures against which even the seemingly unlimited powers of the "super-heroes" of this world have been ineffective, and come out the winner.  
  
My greatest weapons are my body and mind. But, I am not averse to using whatever tools are necessary to get the job done. Yes, I have what they foolishly call "toys". To me, they are all tools. Tools to do a job, and do it well.  
  
Even the symbol is a tool. The urban myth does half my job for me. Who knows how many criminals are not plying their trade today, simply because they are afraid of the Bat? And everything helps keep the mythos alive: the Batarangs that fly in the night; the Batmobile which roars on the road and brooks no escape; the Bat Signal which lights up and forever identifies the skies of Gotham city. My city.  
  
All this, has been made, and is upheld, by one myth, and one man.  
  
The Batman.  
  
Bruce Wayne.  
  
Me.  
  
I am Bruce Wayne.  
  
I am The Batman.  
  
I finish my dance with a final flip, land into a crouch, and flow to my feet. Even naked as I am, it seems like my face is half in shadow, and wings of darkness are settling around me. I smile, that strange half-smile that (someone says) is so uniquely mine.  
  
And now, on to the next problem. Why was I so obsessed with who I am?  
  



End file.
